


Stalker

by Rooscha



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Battlefield, Gunshot Wounds, M/M, Prisoner of War, Stalking, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 11:22:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17058875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rooscha/pseuds/Rooscha
Summary: Deadlock has been looking for Ratchet since before the war started. He finally finds the Junior Officer wounded on the battlefield. Problem is, Ratchet doesn't even remember him. Drabble, written way too late at night and unedited.





	Stalker

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuses and no reasoning for this word babble. Sexual tension and gunshot wounds shouldn't really mix, but here we are...

“Well, Doc, looks like you’re in trouble.” 

Ratchet stopped his movements, ducking his helm out of instinct. The shot never came, but he still didn’t unfurl. Medics were valuable in war, but that didn’t stop them from being blown to pieces. Some mecha relished in the idea, wanting to inflict harm on those who tried to heal. 

The sound of heavy pedes sliding down the steep incline met Ratchet’s audials. The mecha’s voice was vaguely familiar, but this was his third orn with no fuel and no recharge. He was not processing information as quickly as he used to. 

Large hands slid under his chestplates and heaved, joints creaking and hydraulics moaning. Ratchet was heavy, dense. More than one young buck had tried to throw him in the medbay, and that always ended poorly for them. But this mech had done it fairly quickly and easily. Experienced with the weight and heft of medics. 

His optics were still offline, so he had fallen back on sonar. It wasn’t much in the way of information, but it was better than being completely blind. This rendered the opposing mech a blob. No, not just a blob, a giant blob. 

This mecha was large, much larger than he. Given the heat pouring off his frame, he was a warrior. They always ran hot and poured exhaust. It wasn’t entirely unusual for their exhaust to reach out before their EM field. Ratchet found it distasteful, but most warriors didn’t seem to mind. 

“Steady, medic. I’m not part of the cleanup crew,” A finger prod at his offline optics and Ratchet snarled. “I heard chatter on the Autobot comms, something about an officer medic down. No designation was given, but I have a feeling it was you.” 

The finger moved, tracing the edges of his Autobrand before trailing out to his officer marking on his arm. Ratchet shivered, working desperately quickly to patch his software. Software which was so corrupt that he couldn’t even bring up his manual targeting systems. 

“Aw, C’mon Ratch. Don’t tell me you don’t know who it is…” The large blob in front of him crouched, hands moving to the still sparking gun shot wound in his stomach. From what Ratchet could tell, the shot had gone clean through him, blowing a sizable hole in his medical pack and leaving many of his systems critical. 

“Sorry, I’ve got bigger problems than trying to cross reference Decepticons in the field today with those I supposedly know,” Ratchet snarked, one of his sensitive hands moving to his injury as well, ready to try and defend his injury if the larger mech got aggressive. 

So far the mech seemed to realize that he had value as a prisoner. So, Ratchet could eliminate most of the grunts and frontliners. This mecha had to be of some rank and skill, with his ability to hack Blaster’s comm signal and his knowledge of Ratchet’s name and value. He mentioned that he wasn’t part of the after-battle sweep crew, so he was puzzled. 

“Never change, mech. I’m counting on that.” The other mech replied, his hands moving around the sparking wound, sorting out wires with a practiced touch. He was sealing off leaking coolant and energon lines. Much as Ratchet wanted to rail and scream, the mecha was helping him stay alive. Alive, he was worth something to the Autobots. Dead, he was worth considerably less. And dead, his fail safes would wipe his processor clean, the SpecOps department had made certain of that with every medic. Too many names, too many faces, and far too much information. He was a liability, even as a Junior Officer. 

“I wasn’t planning on changing,” He spit static as the mech tugged on an energon line too hard, his hands flying to his wound. “Primus, mech! I can still bleed out if you open those lines any more than they already are.”

“Oh, I know. I just knew that you were getting ready to open your mouth again, and my spike isn’t ready yet. It takes me a little time to get it up, and it’s been a long day.” The mech retorted, his hands still working to stabilize the medic. 

The threat worked. His mouth shut with an audible clack, and the other mech chuckled. Far worse had been done to Autobots caught on the field, and much worse had happened to Junior Officers. Every Decepticon wanted to brag about having been the mech to plow an Autobot Officer. 

The mech worked in silence for a time, his hands steady and sure. This was not the first time he had seen the inside of a mech. That much was obvious. 

“Alright, Ratch. You’re good to walk for a bit. I can’t get your optics back up without hacking you, and I don’t think you’re ready for that level of commitment. We’re going to have to work up to that.” The mecha grabbed Ratchet under his wound, helping him to his pedes. 

“Where are we going? Ship or holding cell?” Ratchet asked, taking a gamble that the mech may answer him – he seemed to be level helmed and calm, threats of swallowing his spike aside. It probably isn’t a threat. But still, may as well try to establish some information for himself.

“I have a ship of my own, but it’s too far for you to walk. There’s a building over this way, it’s already been cleared by the sweep team. We can squat there until it’s safe.” 

Ratchet nodded, wincing as his sonar tried to adjust to the rapid movement. They slowly moved together over a large swatch of ground, weaving to avoid the large piles of metal left over from ordinance. He could hear the other mech scanning for unexploded mines, the telltale pings cutting through Ratchet’s sonar. 

Finally the sounds of pedes meeting the solid metal of a building foundation interrupted their long and slow march across the soft metal of the battlefield. Ratchet slowed, allowing his captor to step in front of him slightly. The mech was taller than him by at least a helm, but slighter. It was hard to tell exactly how much larger the mecha was, his medical suite and diagnostics were down, along with his optics. Still, he had to try. 

Ratchet let one of his pedes slide backwards, one of them spreading open to grip the floor. Then he swung, letting his whole weight pivot at his hips to throw his punch. It was meant to be a first and final blow, something that Ironhide had taught during their classes. The wound on his abdomen caught, a coolant line bursting open with the motion. 

His fist grazed the side of the other mecha, who had the use of all his senses and was probably a warrior to boot. It wasn’t enough to stop him from falling, the momentum only partially transferred. He tried to fall to one knee, to keep himself upright and ready for the return strike. Only, none came. Oh, the other mech snarled and his field flared aggressively, but the hands that grabbed him were not bent on strangling him. Instead, they helped him to his pedes, held him steady as he swayed from sonar input. Coolant dripped down his legs as the other mech sealed it off again.

“Idiot! Trying to get yourself killed, and it’s just plain stupid. You’re less than six joors from rejoining your friends, and I know that those SpecOps mecha didn’t teach you that. That was all you, being an idiot.” He spoke casually, his field not even showing an inch of pain. 

“Had to try. You know how it is, the boys wouldn’t leave me alone if I got back and all I had to show for my time in captivity was a field patched wound. Was hoping you’d give me at least a broken optic.” Ratchet responded, his fingers curling into fists, helplessness flooding his circuits. 

“Idiot, but I get it. You’ve always been a fighter, never wanting to go with the crowd.” The mech cuffed Ratchet on the chin, affectionately. The way he’d been speaking, the casual familiarity, there was something else going on here. Ratchet had been playing it down, the pain flowing through his wound was intense and the punch wasn’t helping. He was done playing the mental games. He wouldn’t be able to keep up the banter at this rate. 

“Alright, I’ll play. Have we met? Do you a fetish for medics?” Ratchet was venting through his mouth, trying to cool his overheating systems. His words were broken up by light gasps as he tried to regulate himself. The burst of that coolant tube was his own fault, and every bit as foolish as the other mech had accused. At his words, the mech’s hands paused in their patching, fingertips flexing into Ratchet’s plating.

“Well now I’m hurt,” He purred, shoving his faceplate right in next to Ratchet’s audial. “Here I was, thinking you cared, and what do I find but a medic who has a death wish. C’mon, sweetspark, it’s Deadlock. You knew me as Drift, a long time ago.” His large hands framed Ratchet’s face, toying with his medic’s chevron, stroking the sensor rich metal with the know-how of a mech who knew exactly what he was doing.

Ratchet thought, diving into his archives and pulling up search results for a “Drift.” He had exactly one memory tagged with the mech’s name, and it was from his clinic in Dead End. A mecha he given his standard spiel to. A leaker, high on syk, and Ratchet had given him the same speech he gave every dirty, down on his luck mecha that wandered into that clinic. Go clean up, get a job. Simple as that. It appeared that this one had taken his words to spark.

In a way, Ratchet was proud. He had always told himself that if just one mecha would take that advice, it was worth saying day in and day out. Most of the mecha in that old clinic had been regulars. Mechs who he saw once, he saw hundreds of times. When they didn’t come back, he assumed they had died in the gutter. He did what he could but knew that he was mostly buying them time.

This one, at least, had done something with his life. Maybe it wasn’t something that Ratchet considered to be upstanding, but he had gotten himself out of the gutters. Problem was, Drift remembered Ratchet. Mecha who held onto things for that long tended to be the kind that didn’t let go easily. And this one seemed to be holding onto…something.

“So…what? You want to kill me or thank me? Given that you’re obviously not a ‘Bot and you still remember me, so I can only imagine that it’s one of those two things.” Ratchet answered, the pain in his lines intensifying. Energon was leaking, his heat was increasing. It was time to give up on the sonar and give himself over to the pitch darkness of having no vision. It would at least give him a little venting room as his energy levels continued to drop. 

“Ouch. Primus, I’d heard you’d turned into an old curmudgeonly bastard, but I didn’t want to believe it. After all, you’d turned to the Autobots. Not a huge surprise to me, but still. Want to come back with me to the Decepticons? I’ll take real good care of you, I have the rank to protect you. You could even work in the Medbay if you really wanted, I’m sure we could swing that.” Drift spoke quietly but with passion, or rather, Deadlock spoke. 

And he mentioned something about rank…that was a point in his favor, if it was true. Ratchet had always been a mech who was attracted to power. There was something about mechs with power – the way they held themselves, the way they spoke. The way they swaggered. And in the berth they were even better. Power almost always translated into a mecha with confidence, in and out of the berth. 

Deadlock would be good in the berth, Ratchet was certain of it. It was in the way he spoke, so casually even though he was kidnapping an opposing officer just off the battlefield. The way his hands moved across Ratchet’s plating, firm but smooth. Even his EM field was exactly what Ratchet liked, steady and smooth, but with spikes of aggression here and there. Exactly what he liked.

“Should I be apologizing?” Ratchet asked, relaxing into his struts, letting his knees lock to support the rest of his weight. Now he was locked into place, fists clenched low at his sides. This mech was probably crazy as anything, but for the moment he seemed to be disinclined to do him harm.

“Pit, no. I’ve…changed a bit since then. I won’t apologize for that either. I lost you for a while in the beginning of the war, but it won’t happen again. I’ve found you now, I got your imprint. I’ll keep tabs on you – I’ve got friends everywhere. I doubt you’ll leave the ‘Bots. Too bad, but I get it. We all have to make choices.” 

“So…what now?” Ratchet asked, filing away everything Deadlock was telling him. SpecOps had to be alerted once he got back to the ‘Bots. They would need to know that he had a stalker. Then again, they may not take him seriously. After all, for all the creepy slag this mech was sprouting, he hadn’t actually…done anything… 

“Now we wait. Unless you want to give me something in return for getting you off the field and repairing you.” Deadlock traced his Autobrand with one large finger, and Ratchet could hear the smirk in his voice. Slagger. 

“Not particularly. You see, I’m a medic. We save and fix people all the time – without asking for sexual favors in reply. I know that the ‘Con medics see things a little differently, but that’s how we ‘Bots do our jobs. So, consider yourself to be an Autobot today. No sex for repairs. Besides, I’m not in any way to…perform.” Ratchet smirked himself, knowing what he must look like. Sparking wound, energon and coolant all over his legs. His optics were dark, face had shrapnel embedded. Then again, that might be the kind of thing that a Decepticon might find incredibly sexy.

“Next time, then.” 

A warning and a promise, all in one.


End file.
